graphic design student

Week 4 tutorial and project review

I had a tutorial with Karl on Tuesday and I was able to talk through my project so far and get some feedback:

– He wants me to pause the logo design while I do some more research into popular and famous logos and understand what makes them successful and perhaps use this new research as inspiration. I think that this is a good idea but I wish I had been asked to do this a bit earlier because there are only two and half weeks left of the project so I really need to get a move on and keep the pace up and can’t really afford to go back and change my designs. I will however look through some books and file some research into my research file and try to take onboard some new ideas.

– I was told I need to get on the computer as soon as possible and start testing out the designs digitally and find fonts etc. I agree and have started doing this.

– Karl made a fair point about the illustrations i’d been doing- he said that I ought to be careful making the bananas too stylised because some of them have started to lose their resemblance to bananas. I think this probably is because I was doing some of them pink etc.

– Also he reminded me that I need to consider scale and make sure that the designs I’ve done (which are currently tiny is a small sketchbook) work well on a larger scale too. This will be easier to test on the computer.

One thing that I have really started to become aware of in the last few days is time scale. I have generally been doing a good job of sticking to my proposed time plan but I know that some things are going to take a long time – such as writing and designing the content for the menu and posters – and I would like to avoid as much stress as possible. To do this I have been writing daily plans of what I need to get done and it has been working well to keep me on track.

My main issue at the moment is that I’ve had no official peer feedback so I don’t feel like I’m working particularly collaboratively. The group critique for graphics people is next Wednesday which I think is a bit late to be getting direction changing feedback so I think I will organise a small critique of my own and ask for some feedback before I continue and go ahead with my designs.

I also need to remember that one of the main parts of my project was to try to keep it as sustainable as possible. I have so far sourced local and socially responsible paper which I am pleased about but I think that sustainability for the rest of the project is going to be challenging. This is to do with limitations at the studio – eg. I don’t have access to non toxic, vegetable based inks. I can however still make sure that I avoid wasting materials and try to promote sustainability within the content of the final pieces.